Resolution compelling MKs to discuss firing AG passes 51-0 after opposition boycott
Opposition lawmakers decry attack on Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara as a coalition attempt to cover up policy failures, and walk out of plenum chanting ‘shame’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
A resolution by Likud MK Avichai Boaron to compel the Knesset to hold a special hearing in the plenum to discuss firing Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara passed 51-0 on Wednesday evening after opposition lawmakers walked out of the chamber chanting “shame.”
The passage of the proposal for the agenda item on “the conduct of the attorney general and the damage to the public” came only a week after a similar motion was defeated by a single vote, prompting coalition insiders to posit that taking action to fire Baharav-Miara may have less support than commonly believed.
“The proposal concerns a very sensitive issue on the agenda of Israeli society…the governance of the executive branch and its ability to implement its policy,” Boaron told lawmakers — arguing that the issue boils down to “the question of whether the people govern the country, whether the Knesset is led by the people’s elected representatives.”
“It is incumbent on each of the members of this house to protect Israeli democracy with all their might,” he stated, accusing opposition MKs of hypocrisy as they called out objections.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin slammed the opposition’s vocal anger, declaring that “this is not how we work.”
Arguing against the measure, Labor MK Gilad Kariv yelled at Boaron that the security failures of the last year are the fault of the government rather than the attorney general, while National Unity chairman Benny Gantz charged that Baharav-Miara was “preventing you from defending [draft] evasion during wartime, and that’s what this debate is about.”
Following the vote, National Unity MK Orit Farkash Hacohen accused Boaron of being a “useful idiot” while Yesh Atid MK Karine Elharrar said that it was a “sad day for Israeli democracy.”
Economy Minister Nir Barkat, whose absence from last week’s vote was widely noted in the Hebrew press, wrote on X that he supported “a substantive and principled discussion on splitting the role of the attorney general” into two positions: a chief government legal adviser and a chief prosecutor.
“This is a structural problem that requires change” and “I will work together with my friends in the coalition to promote the move in a way that will provide a solution for generations to come,” he stated.
“The debate in the Knesset is important, but we must not stop here. The next step is to bring the dismissal of the legal seamstress to the government for discussion at a meeting of the cabinet,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir declared — using an expression implying that the attorney general is fabricating legal charges against him and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “These decisions must be made in the Israeli government.”
A growing number of coalition lawmakers and cabinet ministers have called for Baharav-Miara’s ouster due to frustration with her refusal to defend various controversial and unprecedented measures the government seeks to advance, but which she has determined would be against the law.
If Netanyahu were to fire Baharav-Mirara, it could violate the premier’s conflict of interest arrangement, which requires him to steer clear of decisions on judicial matters that could influence his criminal trial for fraud, bribery, and breach of trust.
After the motion failed the first time it was raised last Wednesday, a coalition source and Knesset insider who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Times of Israel that, despite increasingly bellicose rhetoric, “the majority of ministers and majority of [coalition] MKs are against replacing” Baharav-Miara.
Last week’s vote came on the heels of efforts by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi to force the cabinet to take up the issue.
Karhi had revealed a list of 13 ministers who signed a letter demanding Baharav-Miara’s dismissal: Karhi, Miki Zohar, May Golan, Idit Silman, Amichai Chikli, David Amsalem, Haim Katz, Yitzhak Wasserlauf, Amichay Eliyahu, Orit Strock, Yitzhak Goldknopf, Meir Porush and Itamar Ben Gvir.
Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, who did not sign the letter, later posted on Facebook that “I definitely support holding a government debate regarding the conduct of the attorney general” who “too often prevents the effective functioning of the government.”
Like the MKs in the plenum the following day, Karhi’s show of support was insufficient to force a discussion of the issue in the cabinet.
